Day one of IoT Tech Expo Europe, which is taking place in Amsterdam from 1-2 October, stayed true to its theme “Powering the connected world with IoT” as it covered topics ranging from connectivity solutions to Edge computing and democratising IoT, with IoT Insider present at the show floor to cover these insights.
In his opening remarks on the connectivity, analytics and Edge computing stage, Ronald Horn, Co-Founder of Ocean Development Group touched upon the importance of in-person events in bringing the industry together as he said: “I come here every year and I see new stands, some of them return and some disappear … What’s incredibly interesting for me is that we’re all here and we’re trying to build something together.”
Technology topics that are ongoing in the industry right now and spotlighted by Horn in his talk, included satellite connectivity; the upcoming SGP.32 standard; Edge computing; IoT connectivity; security; national regulations; and B2C customers.
“What you see now [is that]manufacturers are looking for worldwide IoT connectivity,” Horn said. “When you produce air conditioners and ship them all over the world, you want one SIM, one connectivity protocol and you want roaming immediately.”
In another talk, Olivier De Roo, Client Partner & Customer Engagement Lead at In the Pocket discussed balancing Cloud and Edge computing, drawing on the company’s experience of transitioning from building mobile applications to software running on the Edge.
“We went from building for the Cloud and then for the Edge, we learned the hard way that resources are scarce,” De Roo shared. “When we started building mobile applications, we used to be very careful in what we could do, how much computer [power] we require. We had to relearn that when we started building for the Edge again.”
Other considerations include cybersecurity: “You have a physical device that becomes a risk factory. It’s an attack surface … When you develop mobile or Cloud applications, you don’t have to worry about these things,” said De Roo.
Zeger-Jan van de Weg, CEO of FlowFuse was on hand to discuss the topic of democratising IoT, more specifically looking at building software and low-code platforms. “Software has written the world but now there is a large problem in the IoT space … software hasn’t got as far as you’d expect for it to go in a decade,” he said.
“There’s much more complexity that even software developers underestimate,” added van de Weg. “When I started building with our company for IoT, I was used to a world where you had two processor architectures. If you look at the hardware diversity of IoT platforms, you have to account for that, and the Edge too.”
IoT Tech Expo Europe will be running until the 2nd October with talks tomorrow covering cyber resilience, satellite connectivity, global IoT connectivity and more.
Feel free to stop by IoT Insider’s company booth, stand 16, where the IoT Insider team will be happy to discuss with you about future content and marketing opportunities.
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